The Hiriko Fold (you think that’s Japanese, but it’s from the Basque for “urban”! Basque! Didn’t see THAT coming, did you?) was conceived a decade ago by researchers at MIT media lab, who wanted to design a small car that got even smaller for tight city parking. Now it’s finally going into commercial production, which means you could have your own sweet little fold-up car as early as 2013.

The all-electric Fold is normally eight feet long, already smaller than a SmartCar. But it folds up to a mere five feet long for parking, about the size of a shopping cart — small enough that three (and a half) of them can fit in a standard parking space. And all four wheels can swivel up to 60 degrees, which means you can just sort of sidle into the space instead of dealing with all that parallel-parking hoo-hah.

This is definitely not a road-trip car. It’s got a range of about 75 miles on one charge of its lithium-ion battery, and a top speed of 31 miles per hour. And if you’re already an accomplished urban biker, you might want to save your money — your bike already fits in small spaces, and the Fold will cost $16,400, which can buy you a lot of padded shorts. But for non-cyclists who want to zip around the city, you could do a lot worse than a zero-emissions car that can fit into the spaces shitty parkers leave behind.

The designers aren’t interested in the private market, though, so much as in the idea of selling fleets of Hiroki Folds for municipal car-sharing programs. If they get their wish, cities like Berlin, Barcelona, and San Francisco could be equipped with flocks of wee carlets for tourists and commuters to borrow. (Note that two of those target cities have some serious killer hills, making an EV-share program more realistic for non-Übermenschen than bikes.) Instead of spending all your milk money on a Fold, then, you could join a program that would let you use one on the weekdays to get to work. Or you could just borrow one to fold it and unfold it and fold it and unfold it a couple of times. We won’t judge.

As usual, leave it to the Onion to tell us about the really innovative green breakthroughs, the ones so-called “real” news sites won’t report on simply because they are fake and also morally reprehensible. In this case it’s the Prius Solution, the first car that can reduce your carbon footprint to zero, because it kills you with a spike as soon as you get in.

I’ve been thinking about upgrading to an electric car for awhile now. And in today’s market, there are plenty of models to choose from.

But having a lot of options makes for a complicated decision! Each model of electric car has its own unique mix of efficiency, charging time, and driving range — and since buying a car is a big decision, I want to find the model that makes the most sense for my family. To add to the confusion, there doesn’t seem to be any single, unified source of information on the many electric car options out there.

So, for my own convenience — and hopefully yours — I pulled together a table with basic stats on the major electric and plug-in hybrid cars:

What I took away from this research is that there’s no “perfect” choice among the EVs on the market. They’re all far more efficient in electric mode than gas-only models. That means less money spent on fueling your car, and lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions for each mile driven. But whether you’re willing to pay a premium for a longer range, a faster charge, or a higher top speed seems like a personal choice that I can’t help you out with.

But at least you now have the numbers. Happy comparing!

And now for the notes and caveats:

I’ve restricted my search to electric and plug-in hybrid sedans that can carry at least four people — which is what my own family needs most days of the week — and to cars that are either on the market right now, or are expected to be offered later this year, in at least some part of the Pacific Northwest. I decided not to include a couple of cars — the Coda and the Toyota RAV4 EV — that are only being sold in California right now.If I’ve missed some cars, let me know in comments and I’ll be happy to update the table!

MPGe stands for “miles per gallon equivalent” — which is how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rates the efficiency of electric vehicles.

I sorted the models by base MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) minus the maximum U.S. tax credit allowed for that model. But note that you only get the full tax credit if you actually owe that much in federal income tax! Also, I decided not to include the cost of installing an in-home 240-volt charger in the vehicle price, since people with ready access to a public charging station might not need one.

Some of the figures above are estimates, rather than official figures. I did my best, but unfortunately you may need to check the official figures as they’re released.

The Honda Fit EV isn’t actually available for sale yet. A limited run will be leased to customers in Oregon and California beginning this summer. I’ve included its MSRP price (with tax credit) for comparison’s sake, but folks who lease a Honda Fit aren’t even allowed to buy it after the lease is over. That means that the price I quote is sort of irrelevant at this point.

Retail deliveries for the Tesla Model S are scheduled to begin in June, but it looks like the smaller-battery models won’t be shipped until late 2012. I wasn’t able to find solid data on 120-volt charging times on the Tesla website, and the 240-volt charging time estimate can be cut in half if you buy an optional “twin charger” for $1,500. The Tesla website quotes a 300-mile range for its 85-kilowatt-hour (kWh) model … but recently announced that its range is 265 miles under EPA’s new test cycle, which, as a reader pointed out, could mean that the ranges for the 40- and 60-kWh models may be slightly overstated — thus the asterisk.

The MPGe figures for the Prius Plug-in and Chevy Volt are for electric-mode only. The Volt gets 37 mpg in all-gas mode, and the Prius gets 50 mpg.

And as a reminder, the differences in MPGe in all-electric mode are actually quite small. As we’ve written a number of times, miles-per-gallon math is actually quite deceptive: Differences at the low end of the mpg scale matter much more than do differences at the high end of the scale. So the difference between the top performer (the Honda Fit, at 116 MPGe) and its closest rival (the Mitsubishi MiEV, at 112 MPGe) is actually quite small.

Electric cars are a modern new technology, so modern and unproven that many [Republicans] would say they couldn’t possibly be plausible. Except for how they’ve actually been around since the turn of the 20th century. This photo of an electric car charging (above, click to embiggen) is from 1909, and by that point the technology was already 15 years old.

The first “Electrobat” flapped onto the streets of Gotham (uh, Philadelphia) in 1894. It “weighed 4,400 pounds and was powered by an adapted ship motor,” writes Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic, but it’s not like gas-powered automobile technology was all that sleek. In fact, around the turn of the century, the market was evenly split between gas, electric, and horse-powered vehicles.

So what happened? Madrigal has the full story, but here’s the condensed version: The company that planned to manufacture and operate the vehicles (private ownership wasn’t a consideration — it was planned as more of an electric taxi fleet) started strong but eventually crumbled. Mismanaged vehicles and poorly trained drivers meant the service lost money everywhere outside of New York, and it never rallied. Don’t think too hard about what transportation might look like today if it had done a little better, and EVs had emerged victorious from the electric/gas/horse-driven three-way standoff.

In England, when you want to say that a guy or a gal is h-o-t-t HOT, you say “He/she is FIT!” And that is what we want to say about the 2013 Honda Fit EV. The Fit is FIT. F-i-t-t FIT!

This car — this car! — according to the EPA, gets the fuel efficiency equivalent if 118 miles per gallon.

Wow.

As an electric vehicle (EV), the car does not use fuel, so one might also say that it gets 29 kilowatt-hours per 100 miles. That’s better than the Ford Focus Electric, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and the Nissan Leaf, according to Wired. The Fit also charges in three hours and has a range of 82 miles. It costs $36,625, which, admittedly, is pretty expensive. (A new Prius, for instance, now starts at $24,000.)

But a normal driver with a Fit will consume about $500 of electricity per year. Anyone driving a gas-guzzler might spend that much in a month or two — meaning you’re saving thousands of dollars for every year you own it. Yeah, you’re going to want to ogle this car. And start figuring out what pick-up line you’re going to use when you meet the fit owner of a Fit down at the pub sometime soon.

Filed under: Business & Technology, Green Cars]]>http://grist.org/list/honda-fit-most-efficient-car-ever-gets-118-mpg-equivalent/feed/0gal_lg9gristadmingal_lg9What car should my family buy?http://grist.org/green-cars/what-car-should-my-family-buy/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/green-cars/what-car-should-my-family-buy/#commentsMon, 07 May 2012 22:56:46 +0000http://grist.org/?p=96894]]>The Roberts family minivan: Squint closely and you can see a Jedi with a light saber scratched on the side with rock.

Shortly after we got married almost 11 years ago, my wife and I bought a used 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan. We have been driving it ever since. We drove both of our kids home from the hospital in it. We picked up our puppy in it. It’s been on every one of our road trips. I’m incredibly fond of it.

My wife, not so much. She does most of the day-to-day driving, so the nostalgia factor isn’t enough to overcome her aversion to piloting a suburban land yacht. It’s too big, too hard to maneuver and park on city streets, too fuel inefficient. She’s over it.

Consequently, we’re looking for a new car. We’re nearing a decision, but I thought I’d ask for input from you, Grist’s treasured readers. Cause y’all are smart.

Just to anticipate: Yes, I’m sure it would be wonderful if we had no car at all and got our kids around on the bus or in some fancy four-seater bike contraption. But … no. Where we live, what we do, we have to have a car. Maybe someday we’ll live in a walkable enough place that we won’t need one — I hope! — but not today. And also to anticipate: Yes, I’m aware the “greenest” thing we could do is just keep driving the minivan into the ground. But that ship has sailed. So, moving on … here’s our thought process so far:

This will be our main car (if I get my way, our only car, though there’s some internal dispute on that matter). It needs to accommodate me, my wife, my two kids, ages 6 and 8, and my 45-pound dog (who goes with us everywhere in town). The vast majority of our driving is daily commuting in the city. Here’s what we’re looking for:

small, or at least un-huge, but big enough for all of us and some stuff;

fuel efficient;

comfortable;

tan interior, not grey or black.

Yes, my wife is adamant about the interior. (We all have our things.)

One thing that’s not on the list: driving thrillz! I know lots of people fetishize how different cars accelerate or stick to turns or … whatever else you see them doing on car commercials on the beautiful winding road out in the middle of nowhere with no other cars around. But let’s face it: I’m a married dude driving my kids to Little League games. I spend a lot of time at four-way stop signs. I could really give a sh*t if my car is “exciting to drive.” It’s an appliance. I just want it to be comfortable and to work.

In Europe, you see dozens of varieties of cars catering to exactly my consumer profile: young(ish) family that needs some room, but not a ton, and prizes functionality and fuel efficiency. In the U.S. market, though, I’ve found it to be fairly slim pickins.

Chevy Volt: too expensive.

To begin with, our requirements rule out sedans. We tried, in a rented sedan, to get around with the dog between the kids in the back seats, but it didn’t work out. Dog’s too big; too much competition from backpacks and bike helmets. It’s too bad. There are tons of nice, fuel-efficient sedans around, including some fairly cheap and well-reviewed non-hybrid ones like the Hyundai Elantra, which gets 29 mpg city and 40 highway. See also: Ford Fusion or Taurus [oops, I mean Camry] hybrids, Honda Civic or Accord hybrids, and of course the Chevy Volt (which is too expensive for us anyway). The hybrid-sedan market is crazily well-covered. (Unlike, say, the hybrid-minivan market, which at least in the U.S. is empty, a phenomenon that absolutely baffles me.)

We don’t want an SUV. Too big. An SUV is just a station wagon built up to handle terrain that 95 percent of buyers will never travel on, including us. We don’t want something overbuilt; want something appropriately built. If we were going to be tempted by one it would be the Ford Escape hybrid, the most fuel-efficient SUV available at 36/31. There are moderately priced used ones available.

Lexus CT 200h: also too expensive.

Some of the larger hatchbacks (or what they’re apparently calling “5-doors” now) would do the trick for us. The Lexus CT 200h is a pretty sweet ride, but by the time any amenities are added it’s in the mid- to high 30,000s, which is rather rich for our blood. The Hyundai Elantra Touring is nice, but it drops a full 10 mpg down from the sedan, for reasons I don’t understand. The Ford Focus hatchback is powerfully tempting — it’s about the right size, decently priced, extremely well-reviewed, and reasonably fuel efficient at 26/36. (There’s also the Focus electric, but it starts at $40k. The Nissan Leaf is similarly expensive.)

What about actual station wagons? Seems like there used to be tons of them — station-wagon versions of the Honda Accord, Ford Taurus and Focus, VW Passat, etc. These days, though, there aren’t many to choose from. Some of the nicest are made by Subaru, but Subaru is terrible on fuel efficiency. (WTF, Subaru?) There are two fuel-efficient wagons that have gotten our attention.

VW Jetta SportWagen TDI: uncomfortable.

One is the VW Jetta SportWagen TDI, a super-clean diesel station wagon that wins for good looks and a credible 30/42 mpg. It’s got a nice, slim profile, enough cargo room, and VW’s sharp interior. (Seriously, why are VW’s dashboards so much nicer and more comprehensible than the crap in other cars these days?) Loaded up with the moon roof and etc., it’s around $29k, which makes my palms sweat, but is not out of reach.

Unfortunately, when I went and drove a TDI wagon, I just didn’t find it comfortable. The seats are too low to the ground for my taste and are shaped in that same horrible curved way that airplane seats are shaped, where your lower back collapses backward and your head gets shoved forward by a head rest. And the “fun” driving I heard so much about didn’t really strike me as anything special. I was sad not to like this one in practice.

Prius v: nice, but not cheap.

All of which brings us to the new Prius v. (V is for “versatile,” not five.) It looks not much bigger than the normal Prius, but the back is big enough for the dog to sit in comfortably, even accompanied by some luggage. It has as much cargo space as most SUVs, especially with the back seats folded down. It’s extremely comfortable, as I found when I test drove it (yay, lumbar support!), and while not exactly a live wire on the road, it’s certainly zippy enough for me. The back seats recline, which is unusual. It looks plain, but I like plain (I loathe the swoopy look that seems to be in vogue). And it gets 44 mpg in the city, 40 on the highway, which beats just about any other car on the road.

Ford C-Max hybrid: nice, but not yet available.

The only other car I’ve been able to find that has the same excellent fuel efficiency in the right configuration is the Ford C-Max hybrid, which isn’t even out until the fall of this year. It’s not clear yet what it will cost, but I expect it will be in the same neighborhood as the Prius v. It also comes in a plug-in version, which I expect will be considerably more expensive.

I’m half-tempted to wait until the C-Max is out. It will have an advanced lithium ion battery instead of the lead acid [sorry, I misspoke: make that nickel-metal hydride] used in the Prius, along with all the latest gizmo tech. It’s already winning awards. I like what Ford is doing lately and there is some small part of me that wants to “buy American.”

Still, we’ve been holding off on a new car for a long while and the wife is sick of holding. I’m well aware (readers have sent me spreadsheets!) that if we were only worried about total cost of ownership, it would make more sense to buy a cheaper car. It will take a looong time before fuel efficiency pays off the extra cost of the Prius. And I know that if we were only concerned about “green,” we’d probably be better off buying a used car. But it’s hard to find fuel-efficient used cars that match our specs.

Anyway, we’re not concerned with any one single metric, we’re concerned with the whole package, and the Prius v would be the right package of features for us even without the great gas mileage. With it, it tops the pack of contenders. The only problem is the $30k price tag, which is way more than I ever expected to spend on a car … or anything else, really. It makes me woozy. But it’s doable.

So, if any of you are still with me, I’m curious to know what you think. Have you hashed through the same concerns? Do you think our reasoning is off somehow? Let me know in comments. And I’ll let you know what we end up doing.

Electric vehicles are great and all, but they’re not exactly practical for everyone. Like, how’s a farmer in rural China going to a) afford a pricey green car and b) get enough access to electrical outlets and vehicle charging stations?

Well, if he’s Tang Zhengping from Beijing’s Tangzhou Wanji Yongle Town, he’ll build his own – and it’ll be AWESOME.

Fifty-five-year-old Zhengping recently constructed a totally emissions-free vehicle powered by wind and solar. The ride — which comes in a lovely shade of robin’s egg blue — is no jalopy, either: It has a range of 90 miles.

His creation, roughly the size of a box-car, is powered by batteries and two sets of electric generators. A large fan installed in the front and a pair of solar panels in the back help supply power by charging either the battery or generator, depending on which isn’t being used at the time. Altogether, the project cost Zhengping the Chinese equivalent of around 1,600 dollars.

Update: This post originally said Zhengping’s car could travel at 90 mph. D’oh! Miles per hour and range are totally different — we’ve corrected the post to show that the electric vehicle has a range of 90 miles.

It goes 200 miles on a third as much battery power as an electric car. It has airbags and an enclosed cockpit. It’s gyroscopically stabilized, like a Segway.

It could be the future of transportation.

Think of it as either an electric velomobile on steroids or the Nissan Leaf on a crash diet — either way, two wheels plus ultra-efficient electric transport means that once oil gets really expensive, Lit Motors‘ C-1 electric motorcycle could be the best vehicle on the road.

The C-1 was unveiled on Tuesday at Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Green conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif., but it’s still very much a prototype. It won’t be available for at least 18 months, and it will cost $24,000 when it arrives.

But once it comes out, its electronically-controlled power train will be capable of some pretty impressive stuff.

Lit’s website brands it “a rolling smartphone” and Kim himself describes it as an app that could be programmed to pop wheelies, corkscrews and other BMX tricks.

That’s right — it’s staggeringly fuel-efficient, it’s adorable, AND you can train it to do tricks. It’s like the world’s best vehicle and the world’s best pet in one.

AWESOME, right? Okay, I know this is just that thing where advertisers colonize every form of media or social networking and pervert it to their own capitalistic ends, but I can’t help it: This technique of using Twitter as an ASCII-art flipbook is just so cool!

Smart Cars are pretty cool in their own right — they’re teeny, cute, 85 percent recyclable, and ridiculously fuel-efficient, so if you have to have a car they’re a good way to go. But I like that they’re also putting that innovative spirit to use finding fun new ways for us to interact with the internet. Guess I’m just a sucker for advertising that doesn’t make me want to punch things.

Filed under: Green Cars]]>http://grist.org/list/smart-car-goes-on-an-ascii-adventure-in-the-worlds-coolest-twitter-feed/feed/0smartargjesszimmermansmartargFour cars, built by teenagers, that get over 1,000 miles per gallonhttp://grist.org/list/four-cars-built-by-teenagers-that-get-over-1000-miles-per-gallon/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/list/four-cars-built-by-teenagers-that-get-over-1000-miles-per-gallon/#commentsWed, 04 Apr 2012 18:09:15 +0000http://grist.org/?p=91127]]>The Shell Eco-Marathon is sort of a weird contradiction. On the one hand, it’s sponsored by Shell, but on the other hand, it’s all about challenging high school and college students to make hyper-fuel-efficient cars, i.e. kind of the opposite of Shell’s goals. It’s like if the Intel high school science competition were sponsored by Rick Santorum.

At any rate, though, the kids really came through this year. Here are four of the winning vehicles, all built by high schoolers, all of which got more than 1,000 miles to the gallon in their competition trials.

Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Ind., basically cleaned up the competition. Here’s their 9th Gen, a gas-powered vehicle that got 2,188.6 miles per gallon on its best run.

Mater Dei’s 8th Gen is electric and squeezed out the equivalent of 1,587 miles per gallon.

Gas-powered 6th Gen, also by Mater Dei, logged 1,441.5 miles per gallon.

Finally, Mater Dei let someone else win for a while: Wawasee High School of Syracuse, Ind., entered this diesel-powered vehicle called Diesel, which got 1,289.8 miles per gallon.

Velomobiles are reclining bicycles with fiberglass shells on top, to make you super aerodynamic, weatherproof, and sort of whimsical.

The only thing better than a Velomobile is an electric Velomobile, which is the exact same thing, but with the addition of a kit to electrify the bike.

We bought an electric bike in lieu of a second car, and I am telling you now, until you’ve gone 20 MPH uphill on a brushless 750-watt motor, the wind in your hair, your fuel and insurance cost reduced to zero, you are living a poor simulacrum of the life you could have.

The sheer number of vehicles being added in Asia means a whole new level of competition for oil. It’s a competition that Asia will almost surely win, and will probably do more to drive the adoption of electric cars in the U.S. than any policy or tax credit.

When oil gets expensive, we turn to alternatives to cars — Americans are already taking up mass transit in record numbers. With a jillion new cars on the road in China, vying for limited resources, electric cars and hybrids are going to start looking pretty sweet.

San Francisco’s hipsters are about to get motorized. Scoot Networks, an electric scooter rental system similar to Zipcar, recently launched in the Bay Area.

The system, which is being rolled out to San Francisco-based companies for private fleets, lets users locate nearby scooters with their smartphone and claim the one they want (as with Zipcar, each scooter lives at a certain location). After it’s docked into the scooter, the phone unlocks the vehicle and acts like a virtual dashboard, providing a map as well as information on speed and range.

The electric scooters can reach speeds of 30 mph and can cruise 20 to 30 miles before they need to be returned to parking spots to recharge. That’s enough to get through all of the Mission District’s street art and taquerias, with mileage to spare for pursuing other hipster-y adventures (picking up mustache wax?). Even better, a monthly Scoot membership costs only slightly more than a monthly Muni pass, and one-time rentals rival typical cab fares.

Scoot Networks is catering exclusively to the corporate set for now, but the company will soon offer scooters for public use at public transit stops throughout the city. Scoot plans to have hundreds of scooters available to San Franciscans by the end of the year, and, if all goes well in the Bay Area, deploy fleets of scooters to cities across America.

Before tackling electric cars, though, Eos wants to commercialize its battery technology for grid storage — a potentially ginormous market, considering it would take 80 gigawatts of it to balance an emissions-free power generation system in the United States. Once they’ve sorted out our national power storage problems, then they can move on to revolutionizing electric vehicles.

Eos’s batteries are “Zinc Air,” which means they are made out of common, relatively benign materials, and could last up to 30 years, claims the company. That means your new “fuel tank” could last longer than your car.

Filed under: Business & Technology, Cleantech, Climate & Energy, Green Cars, Oil]]>http://grist.org/list/liquid-battery-electric-vehicle-could-charge-in-three-minutes/feed/0zing-air-batteryChristopher Mimszinc-air-batteryWatch Republicans try valiantly to be funny by mocking Chevy Volthttp://grist.org/list/watch-republicans-try-valiantlyto-be-funny-by-mocking-obamas-support-for-chevy-volt/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/list/watch-republicans-try-valiantlyto-be-funny-by-mocking-obamas-support-for-chevy-volt/#commentsTue, 28 Feb 2012 14:45:33 +0000http://grist.org/?p=84433]]>Aw, look, they’re trying to make jokes! I’m going to print this right out and hang it on the fridge in a frame that says My First Satire.

Leaving the humor value (or “humor” “value”) thing aside, I’m actually kind of stunned that a right-wing group is willing to go this negative on the U.S. auto industry — you know, the one it used to be all patriotic to support. I guess all they need is a mild indication that something might be attempting environmental friendliness, and they’ll immediately repudiate it. They’d probably throw their own grandmother under a bus if they heard she was recycling.

A new breakthrough from California-based Envia Systems will yield lithium-ion batteries that are less than half the cost of current cells, while also having three times the energy density. And guess who funded it? The Department of Energy. That’s right: Sometimes, when the government invests in innovation, it pays off moon launch-big.

Envia’s announcement said that its packs would deliver cell energy of 400 watt-hours per kilogram at a cost of $150 per kilowatt-hour. Though it doesn’t disclose a cost breakdown, Tesla Motors rates the energy density of its Roadster’s pack at 121 watt-hours per kilogram. Envia said its energy-density performance was verified in testing of prototype cells at the Naval Service Warfare Center’s Crane evaluation division.

Envia’s breakthrough happens to match the price/performance point that some analysts consider the “holy grail” of battery characteristics required for mass commercialization. Which means that within a decade or so, cars like the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt could be as popular as iPads.

Filed under: Business & Technology, Cleantech, Green Cars]]>http://grist.org/list/ev-battery-breakthrough-to-halve-cost-triple-range/feed/0envia_battery_550Christopher Mimsenvia_battery_550The best of the U.S. Army’s ‘Going Green’ Pinteresthttp://grist.org/list/the-best-of-the-us-armys-going-green-pinterest/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/list/the-best-of-the-us-armys-going-green-pinterest/#commentsFri, 24 Feb 2012 17:39:02 +0000http://grist.org/?p=83955]]>For those of you who are out of touch with what the young people and Mormons are all about these days, Pinterest is this really big, Facebook-but-for-images type thing, and it’s kind of wild that the Army is on it, because it’s mostly pictures of cats, clothes, and cupcakes. They even have a collection of images for their “green” efforts, from which we plucked a few of our favorites.

Sgt. 1st Class Juan Silva, Support Operations, 8th Theater Sustainment Command, fills a Humvee with B20, a biodiesel, for the first time, recently. The tactical vehicle is participating in the DoD’s Tri-Service Petroleum, Oils and Lubricants Users Group Evaluation. Data from the 8th TSC evaluation and five other B20 evaluation test sites will be compared, later, to determine the future of biodiesel fuel throughout the military.

U.S. Army at Chicago Auto Show 2012: The Army is participating in the Chicago Auto Show 2012. The show runs through next Feb. 19th at the McCormick Place Convention Center. The U.S. Army has several exhibits including two concept lightweight, diesel-electric hybrid prototypes.

James Muldoon, science officer, U.S. Army Pacific, explains hydrogen fuel cell technology to Sen. Daniel Inouye, Feb. 22, 2012, during a commissioning ceremony at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. The vehicle in the image generated the electricity needed to power the public address system during the ceremony.

Bate invented a converter that reportedly recycles animal (or human) waste into methane gas — and he ginned it up from “odds and ends at hand.” To be fair, using the converter is a pretty involved process, requiring 300 pounds of manure that has been fermented for up to a week. But on the flip side, Bate estimated it only cost him 3 cents (17 cents in 2011 money) for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline.

Once he had a guaranteed supply of methane, Harold next faced the problem of getting the high-pressure gas into his car’s engine in the exact amount required by the power plants under all operating conditions. His answer, of course, was the now-famous 6″ x 5″ carburetor attachment which he calls the Bate Auto Gas Converter.

The attachment (it looks like a model flying saucer) fits between the methane pressure bottle and the car’s carburetor and allows the cylinders of the engine to suck just enough methane–and no more-from the bottle as the fuel is needed. The only modification made on the engine itself is the simple tubular jet which is threaded into the choke tube of the carburetor before the throttle butterfly valve. A run of rubber tubing connects this to the Bate converter and a further run goes back to wherever the methane bottle is carried. No mechanical linkage or other complicated modification is necessary.

Mother Earth News reported that “hundreds of people … are now driving chicken-powered cars the world over,” but Bate’s invention never did really catch on. Maybe because of the 300 pounds of fermented manure.

It’s getting toward sunset and I’m lost, sitting behind the wheel of a cherry-red Prius C prototype, at the bottom of a very steep hill somewhere in the urban wilds of San Diego.

My driving partner, Melissa Hincha-Ownby, looks over and flashes a big grin. In addition to being an auto geek, the MNN blogger is also a mind reader. “Go for it!” she cries.

I do — jamming the pedal to the metal.

Imagine the smell of burning rubber as we rocket up the hill, the acceleration slamming us back into our seats. Then get your imagination recalibrated.

This newest addition to the family is still a Prius, after all, one of the most fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. And, with an estimated in-town rating of 53 mpg, the C is the most efficient hybrid vehicle on the market. No. This is not a muscle car.

Still, the C is the nimblest incarnation of the world’s best-selling hybrid, and we happily zoom up the hill with no hesitation, strain, or detectable shudder. The engine is slightly smaller than the standard model, but reduced weight and improved aerodynamics compensate for the lower horsepower.

I had been skeptical at the morning briefing when Toyota’s chief Prius engineer, Satoshi Ogiso, described the C as “feisty.” Feisty is still a stretch. But this scaled-down version of the Prius is surprisingly fun to drive. At just 2,496 pounds, the C is the lightest Prius sold — by more than 500 pounds. The tires have been pushed to the outside of the frame, giving the C a wider stance. (Must get image of Larry Craig out of my head!) The car’s nickel-metal hydride battery has been moved forward and dropped down, lowering the center of gravity and giving the C more stability cornering.

The C stands for “city,” according to Toyota, but “compact” fits, too. The new model is a full 19 inches shorter than the liftback, as the original Prius has been renamed. “Cheaper” would also apply, with the C starting at $18,950.

Trunk space is limited, but with the rear seats folded down, the total cargo area is a decent 17.1 cubic feet, enough for groceries or even a bike or two.

Performance, efficiency, room. That brings us to, um, aesthetics.

No one has ever called the Prius the world’s most beautiful car, and the C is unlikely to change that. Still, the redesigned back end and changed proportions have made the car physically attractive. Maybe the ugly duckling hasn’t become a swan, but it has developed into a perfectly nice duck. If aesthetics kept the Prius out of the running for some buyers, the new Prius C — with its great mileage, lower price, supple handling, and good looks — should appeal to a new generation of green-car buyers.

MIT’s 1,609-pound, all-electric wheeled pod thingy is actually going to be produced and sold, so we thought it could use a marketing campaign. Also, the whole web is kind of having a holiday right now, and we wanted to throw our party hats in the ring.

Anyway, the Hiriko, as it’s been named, will be rolled out in a trial run of 20, in the the Basque region of Spain, reports the Times. The coolest thing about it by far is that it can fold itself up so that three of them can fit in a single regular parking space. Also, it could be used as a marital aid for a Colossus, the end.

Filed under: Business & Technology, Green Cars]]>http://grist.org/list/sporty-little-mit-city-car-is-cute-as-an-animal-themed-butt-plug/feed/0cute_as_agristadmincute_as_aShocking but true! The director of ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’ wants to chat with you!http://grist.org/green-cars/shocking-but-true-the-director-of-revenge-of-the-electric-car-wants-to-chat-with-you/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/green-cars/shocking-but-true-the-director-of-revenge-of-the-electric-car-wants-to-chat-with-you/#commentsTue, 24 Jan 2012 21:44:48 +0000http://grist.org/?p=76735]]>Chris Paine, director of Revenge of the Electric Car.

Director Chris Paine chatted with Grist readers about his latest film, Revenge of the Electric Car, which comes out on DVD this week after a nationwide tour.

Paine’s 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, told the tale of the EV-1, a prototype electric car created, then buried, by General Motors. Revenge of the Electric Car is the sequel, and follows the saga of four men, all racing to create a plug-in vehicle for the mass market, for the luxury set, or just for the pure awesomeness of it. (Read our review of the film here.)

Paine knows his audience: We Americans love our autos. And as much as electric cars are a decent stopgap as we retool our transportation system to provide real, workable alternatives, this film has done its job: helping to convince us that electric power can be just as fun as the fuel-injected kind.

For cars poorly suited to the upper Midwest’s frigid winters, a block heater plugged in overnight could keep the engine warm enough to start the next morning. Cars and trucks with electrical cords protruding from their grills were a frequent sight.

New technologies such as fuel injection, direct ignition, superior motor oils, and better batteries have largely relegated that custom to history in all but the most frigid regions of the world. But with more than a dozen electric and plug-in car models due on the U.S. market in 2012, some Minnesotans will find themselves reviving the practice.

Shayna Berkowitz has some pretty strong opinions about how electric vehicles perform in Minnesota winters.

“Winter is very hard on this technology,” she said. “Batteries in winter do not equal success.”

“To have an all-electric vehicle here in this climate is pretty radical,” Berkowitz says. “It’s a pretty dramatic thing to be able to do.”

However, there are some solutions that can make electric vehicles practical in cold climates:

(Video by Rick Fuentes.)

Why cold weather is hard on batteries

There are several reasons why electric vehicles have special needs when it comes to operating in cold climates.

Batteries produce electricity through chemical reactions, and these reactions slow as the temperature falls. A lead acid battery, like that used to start a normal gasoline engine, can lose almost 40 percent of its capacity as the temperature drops below zero.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 2006 found that nickel metal hydride and lithium ion batteries used in electric cars could see a drop of more than 80 percent in capacity [PDF] at temperatures around 0 degrees F, compared to 73 degrees F.

Cold batteries also do not accept charging energy as easily as they do when warm, so the benefits of regenerative braking, which uses the car’s drive motor as a generator when slowing down, is much less effective. In addition, an all-electric vehicle must use some of its battery energy to power items like the cabin heater, seat heaters, and the defroster.

Consumer Reports has noted that the Nissan Leaf’s 100-mile range on a charge during the summer months dropped to around 65 miles in cold weather, and Berkowitz says that a Toyota Prius that normally gets 45-55 miles per gallon (mpg) will only get 35-45 mpg in winter because of diminished battery capacity.

Preparing plug-in cars for winter

ReGo developed ways of dealing with cold weather in its hybrid conversions right from its beginnings four years ago. ReGo’s system includes electric resistance heaters and insulation around its battery pack. The heaters are powered through the charging cable that plugs into the electrical socket in the owner’s garage.

As with ReGo’s conversions, the Nissan Leaf uses an electric resistance heater to warm the battery when the car is attached to the home charging circuit. In addition, the Leaf can draw power from its lithium ion battery pack to heat itself, as long as the charge level in the pack is above 30 percent. The heater comes on automatically when the temperature falls below -4 degrees F and shuts off again when the battery temperature rises above 14 degrees F.

The Leaf, as well as the Chevrolet Volt, can preheat their cabins and batteries when plugged in overnight. ReGo offers a similar system, not just for hybrids but also for ordinary non-electric vehicles, to help cut down on cold-weather idling while the interior comes to temperature.

And while the cold poses day-to-day driving challenges for EV owners in the Midwest, another NREL study showed that a battery pack operating in a cooler climate like that of Minneapolis will last significantly longer [PDF] than one that spends its life in a hotter city like Phoenix.

Car companies who are building electric vehicles do extensive winter testing to fully understand the cars’ limitations and adapt accordingly. GM, for instance, tested several pre-production Chevy Volts in Kapuskasing, Ontario, where temperatures can drop to -40 degrees F. But only when a significant number of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles hit Midwest highways will the success of these adaptations be known.

Meanwhile, ReGo’s Berkowitz understands the need to make her company’s electric conversions as trouble-free as possible.

“When it comes to transportation, people want reliable, dependable, consistent, easy technology,” she said. “Change is hard for people. They don’t want their commute to be a science fair project.”

Filed under: Article, Green Cars]]>http://grist.org/green-cars/how-plug-in-cars-can-face-up-to-winters-challenges/feed/0car-block-heaters-finland-flickr-suvi-korhonengristadmincar-block-heaters-finland-flickr-suvi-korhonenAlmost all U.S. car use is within an electric car’s rangehttp://grist.org/list/almost-all-u-s-car-use-is-within-an-electric-cars-range/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/list/almost-all-u-s-car-use-is-within-an-electric-cars-range/#commentsWed, 18 Jan 2012 15:46:16 +0000http://grist.org/?p=74672]]>Because it takes longer to fill up an electric vehicle than to fill a gas tank, and because EV infrastructure is still limited, the most common criticism of EVs goes something like “OMG RANGE ANXIETY.” And, sure, no one wants to get stuck in their big metal bucket on the side of a highway until a tow truck can haul your ride to the nearest charger. But two Columbia Ph.D. students have parsed real actual data (from the National Household Travel Survey) to show that, in the daily lives of most people, range anxiety just shouldn’t be a thing.

The first conclusion Garret Fitzgerald and Rob van Haaren present is that 95 percent of all individual trips (i.e. one-way trips) are shorter than 30 miles. But they concede that this is maybe stupid: “The one-way trip distance distribution may not be a good indicator of the necessary range for an electric car.” People want to get back home, right? No worries! They also analyzed the full distance that cars traveled in a day, and 93 percent of them went less than 100 miles.

That’s at the higher end of the range for most EVs now, but it’s certainly possible to get a car that can handle that. And it won’t take a major leap in technology to make that sort of range more common in the near future.

Hitting the "on" button on this car (because in the future, all cars will be started the same way you start up a laptop) makes the interior flash blue like you've just stepped into a light cycle from TRON. Check the video, below, for the full effect.

]]>Volkswagen E-Bugster

Hitting the "on" button on this car (because in the future, all cars will be started the same way you start up a laptop) makes the interior flash blue like you've just stepped into a light cycle from TRON. Check the video, below, for the full effect.

The car’s central electric module weighs just 80 kg, and juice for the motor is stored in a lithium-ion battery whose modules are housed in a space-saving location behind the front seats. The battery has an energy capacity of 28.3 kWh, offering the car a 180 km operating range.

The For-Us is an electric vehicle and uses the same 55kW motor and 17.6kWh lithium-ion battery pack first seen on the all-electric Smart fortwo. Range is thus pegged at 86-miles on a full-charge. Performance numbers are a similar story, its brisk, but not fast. Acceleration from 0-37 mph takes about 5-seconds.

Tata eMO electric

They named it the "Emo"? Really? Anyway, it has a range of 100 miles and a top speed of 65 MPH, which is plenty considering that Tata mostly sells to its home country of India. More from Edmunds and The New York Times.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is one of the most responsible energy journalists on the planet, in part because she writes for the blog of all blogs, BoingBoing, which has never felt the need to cloak its writers' opinions in trumped-up objectivity and false balance. So it was refreshing to see her refute the latest turd lobbed over the wall by the internet's favorite tabloid, Gawker Media: "You Are Not Alone. America Hates Electric Cars.”

]]>

Maggie Koerth-Baker is one of the most responsible energy journalists on the planet, in part because she writes for the blog of all blogs, BoingBoing, which has never felt the need to cloak its writers' opinions in trumped-up objectivity and false balance. So it was refreshing to see her refute the latest turd lobbed over the wall by the Internet's favorite tabloid, Gawker Media: "You Are Not Alone. America Hates Electric Cars."

Forming interest groups around your own misbegotten prejudices is nothing new, so kudos (I guess) to author Joel Johnson for remembering that the shortest route to pageviews is to tap into America's bottomless well of reactionaries who are fundamentally ill at ease in the face of change. The debate over electric cars — and everything they imply — is going to come to a boil again and again, as the 21st-century equivalent of buggy-whip makers either get ahead of larger trends in oil and carbon prices or are swallowed by them.

Which is why it's so fortunate that it was Koerth-Baker who addressed this piece and not me. She's much, much more reasonable, and it's worth reading her response in full. Her basic points are straightforward and worth repeating:

Most Americans (more than 80 percent, in fact) live in cities, and this trend is only accelerating. Sure, people out on the open prairie won’t get much use from a limited-range car, but the average commute is well within the range of a Nissan Leaf.

Sure, electric cars won't save the environment. Personal transport is a small fraction of our carbon emissions. Our sprawl-ified cities are going to have to be fixed, too.

But electric cars are more environmentally sound than gasoline powered cars, even given that half the electricity in the U.S. is produced from coal.

Electric cars are awesome. This is true. They have better low end torque and no gearbox. A powerful one will take off like a jet engine. They win drag races all the time. The fastest car in the world that you can buy is currently gasoline-powered, but only because it was beaten by an all-electric and the gas-powered team had to retool to make their vehicle even faster.

Gas cars aren't dead. As I wrote just a couple of days ago, they could be way better than they are, and higher oil prices will drive a shift to more fuel-efficient gasoline vehicles long before electrics are in the majority — solely because of cost. (Aside: At the intersection of ever increasing oil prices and cheaper and cheaper batteries is a point at which it makes more financial sense to go electric. That day is coming.)

Filed under: Business & Technology, Green Cars]]>http://grist.org/list/2012-01-06-the-only-defense-of-electric-cars-you-really-need/feed/0fillion_arcimoto.jpggristadminCritical List: Toxic chemicals on the rise; baby seals in troublehttp://grist.org/list/2012-01-06-critical-list-toxic-chemicals-on-the-rise-baby-seals-in-trouble/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/list/2012-01-06-critical-list-toxic-chemicals-on-the-rise-baby-seals-in-trouble/#commentsFri, 06 Jan 2012 21:53:24 +0000http://www.grist.org/article/2012-01-06-critical-list-toxic-chemicals-on-the-rise-baby-seals-in-trouble/ The EPA may retest water in Dimock, Pa., where residents have linked polluted water to fracking operations. In its first round of testing the town's water, the EPA declared it safe.

GM is fixing up the Volt in order to avoid in real-life battery fires like the ones that started during testing.

As winter sea ice disappears in the Arctic, fewer baby harp seals are making it.

The president of the Maldives has a message for Australia: The entire population of his country is probably there if their islands sink, so get ready.

Scientists are making progress on carbon capture technology, which is good news if you believe that the world’s not going to give up coal.

Filed under: Animals, Business & Technology, Climate & Energy, Climate Change, Coal, Green Cars, Pollution]]>http://grist.org/list/2012-01-06-critical-list-toxic-chemicals-on-the-rise-baby-seals-in-trouble/feed/0gristadminHuge strides in fuel efficiency innovation canceled out by bigger carshttp://grist.org/list/2012-01-04-engineers-make-huge-strides-in-fuel-efficiency-automakers-just-b/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_greencars
http://grist.org/list/2012-01-04-engineers-make-huge-strides-in-fuel-efficiency-automakers-just-b/#commentsThu, 05 Jan 2012 02:07:50 +0000http://www.grist.org/article/2012-01-04-engineers-make-huge-strides-in-fuel-efficiency-automakers-just-b/ If, and this is true, automakers have made huge strides in fuel efficiency over the past 30 years, why aren't we all driving the 100 MPG ubercars we were promised at Epcot Center when we were but wee lads and lasses?

]]> If, and this is true, automakers have made huge strides in fuel efficiency over the past 30 years, why aren't we all driving the 100-mpg ubercars we were promised at Epcot Center when we were but wee lads and lasses?

Specifically, between 1980 and 2006, the average gas mileage of vehicles sold in the United States increased by slightly more than 15 percent — a relatively modest improvement. But during that time, Knittel has found, the average curb weight of those vehicles increased 26 percent, while their horsepower rose 107 percent. All factors being equal, fuel economy actually increased by 60 percent between 1980 and 2006.

In other words, if cars today were built to the same scale as cars in 1980, when they had an average 23.1 mpg, the fleet-wide average of all the passenger vehicles in the U.S. would be 37 mpg, says Knittel, or nearly the same as our most fuel-efficient conventional sedans.

Instead, the average fuel efficiency from 1980 to the present has been more or less flat. Which is even crazier when you think about how much more we know about making cars than we did in 1980. We could have carbon fiber supercars with aluminum engines, but noooooo, we need Escalades and Tundras so we have something to move into when the bank forecloses on our house because we failed to budget for the long sunset of oil.

But don't take my word for it; here's Knittel on why we're in this pickle. (Hint: it's not the fault of the automakers.)

“I find little fault with the auto manufacturers, because there has been no incentive to put technologies into overall fuel economy,” Knittel says. “Firms are going to give consumers what they want, and if gas prices are low, consumers are going to want big, fast cars.”

If we could return to the average size and power of a 1980 vehicle but continue the trend of increasing efficiency through technological innovation, we would raise the fleet-wide average to 52 MPG by 2020, says Knittel. Ultimate, he believes the solution is up to policymakers, in the form of increased fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards, and a gas tax.

I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor. I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to factors out of our control.

I don’t speak for the scientific community, of course, but I believe the world’s getting warmer. I can’t prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, ’cause I know that there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past, but I believe that we contribute to that. And so I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing.

Back when he was governor of Massachusetts, in 2004, Romney unveiled a Climate Protection Plan that aimed to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and then about 10 percent more by 2020, relying primarily on voluntary measures and requirements that applied only to the state government (though he did attach a letter to the plan emphasizing that he wasn’t sure whether climate change was really for real). His administration also helped shape the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade system for Northeast states, though he pulled Massachusetts out of it in 2005, shortly before it launched.

In 2003, Romney even railed against a heavily polluting Massachusetts coal plant that he said “kills people.”

Now

Fast-forward to the summer and fall of 2011, when a cast of looney-tunes Republican competitors made Romney look increasingly, suspiciously reasonable. Can’t have that, so …

“I will ensure we utilize to the fullest extent our nation’s nuclear know-how and immense reserves in oil, gas and coal,” he wrote in September 2011. “We are an energy-rich country that, thanks to environmental extremism, has chosen to live like an energy-poor country. That has to end.” That means drilling in the “the Gulf of Mexico, both the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves, Western lands, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and off the Alaska coast,” according to Romney’s economic plan [PDF]. “And it includes not only conventional reserves, but more recently discovered shale oil deposits as well.”